30 gallon Paludarium

My 30 gallon paludarium tank is actually an unheated tank I originally designed for newts. A paludarium is just a fancy way of saying a tank with water and land. When the newts decided they would rather stay terrestrial, I decided to add fish. This is an unheated, colder water tank (between 55-65°F). Despite being a cold water tank, there are still some fish that can live in that temperature range. It’s home to 6 Peppered Cory Cats, 5 Zebra Danios, 2 Giant Danios, and a few snails. It also has some cold water plants living in it as well, mainly moss, anacharis, java fern, and ludwigia. For lighting I am using the Current Satellite from my old 30 gallon reef tank.

Despite being that cold, my cory cats regularly spawn, leaving their eggs stuck to the glass. All the other fish appear very active and healthy. I have yet to try to hatch the eggs and raise the fry, but I will most likely be trying this very soon. I know there is at least one female, possibly two in the aquarium, and they feel right at home with the sandy bottom. They will usually lay eggs shortly after I feed the tank frozen blood worms.

The background of this tank was actually made from expanding foam covered in coconut bedding. There is a drip system to have water circulating through the whole system and pumped on parts of the background as well as a little stream.

Because the tank has land and water, I can add some terrestrial plants like the air plant to the left.

Also, as you can see moss has grown out of the water and covers part of the background.

But the fish at this point are the main attraction of the tank, because the “newts” hide all day unless I am feeding them.